Appearing in "The Shadows of the Starstone!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Clea
- Wong
- Henry Gordon (First appearance)
- Blondine (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Dagoth (First appearance) (Main story and flashback)
Other Characters:
- Shambler from the Sea (N'Gabthoth) (Corpse)
- Shuma-Gorath (Mentioned)
- Vishanti (Invoked)
- Elder Ones (Mentioned) (as the Elder Ones who represent good)
- Jedediah Gordon (Mentioned)
- Herr von Junzt (Mentioned)
- Lord (Invoked)
- Sligguth (Mentioned)
- Hoggoth (Invoked)
- Raggador (Invoked)
- Krakkan (Invoked)
- High Priestess of Dagoth (unnamed; one of Blondine's past lives) (Only in flashback)
- Kulthas (Mentioned)
- Valtorr (Invoked)
Races and Species:
- Humans
- Faltine-Mhuruuk Hybrids
- Fish
- Old Ones
- Demons
- Birds
- Gods of Earth (Mentioned)
Locations:
- Earthspace
- Earth
- North America
- United States of America
- New England
- Maine
- Starkesboro
- N'Gabthoth's Roost
- Maine
- New England
- United States of America
- Europe
- United Kingdom
- England
- Stonehenge (Mentioned)
- Cornwall (First appearance)
- Penmallow (First appearance)
- Witch House (First appearance)
- Tower of Dagoth (First appearance)
- Kalumesh (First appearance) (Main story and flashback)
- Penmallow (First appearance)
- England
- United Kingdom
- North America
- Yaggoth (Mentioned)
- Green Planet of Shuma-Gorath (Mentioned)
- Earth
- Raggadorr (Invoked)
- Krakkan (Invoked)
- Astral Plane (Mentioned)
- Valtorr (Invoked)
Items:
- Cloak of Levitation
- Eye of Agamotto
- Nameless Cults (First appearance)
- Starstone (First appearance)
- Spells
Synopsis for "The Shadows of the Starstone!"
With N'Gabthoth defeated, Strange leaves for Stonehenge in England right away to prevent the next step in the revival of Shuma-Gorath. In England, near the town of Penmallow in Cornwall, Henry Gordon is the inheritor of his Uncle Jed's manor, Witch House, which is still looked after by his uncle's housekeeper, Blondine. He learns of his uncle's research into the occult, and soon reads about the sunken land of Kalumesh and that it sank because its people worshipped a demon-god called Dagoth who served Shuma-Gorath. After finding a wet footprint of a giant webbed foot, Henry notices a light shining in an old tower that Blondine identifies as the Tower of Dagoth. Although she warns him never to go there, Henry ignores her warning, suspecting that she and the villagers are attempting to steal his inheritance. On the beach near the tower, Henry finds a strange jewel with a weird shadow trapped inside and brings it back to Witch House.
Early the next morning, Henry has come to believe that his uncle was seeking lost treasure in sunken Kalumesh and Blondine has agreed to help him hunt for it. As they head out in a motorboat, Blondine warns Henry that legend says that Dagoth still inhabits these deeps and may attack them. Henry again dismisses her warning and the two of them go scuba diving in search of drowned Kalumesh. However, just as they spot the city, Henry and Blondine are confronted by the demon Dagoth. Helpless against the monstrous creature, the duo are about to be killed when Dr. Strange arrives and manages to bind Dagoth with the Seven Rings of Raggador. Strange then rescues the two divers and brings them to Witch House where he wonders if they could be mixed up with the Cult of Dagoth. When the semi-conscious Blondine murmurs that she hears Shuma-Gorath's call, Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to probe her mind and learns that she is the reincarnation of the high priestess of Dagoth who drowned in the cold water with the other human inhabitants of the city when it sank beneath the ocean.
That night, while Strange and Henry rest, an entranced Blondine takes the jewel, which she calls the Starstone, and places it before a window that is a lens sacred to Shuma-Gorath. The light beaming down from Kulthas frees the shadow from within the Starstone and that darkness then spreads throughout the town, turning everyone into slaves of Dagoth who has freed himself and now plans to sacrifice them all to Shuma Gorath.
As the people begin to march into the sea to offer themselves as sacrifices, Clea and Wong arrive by car, and Clea uses her mystic abilities to rouse Strange from his demon-induced stupor. Strange then uses the Vipers of Valtorr to gather in the evil shadow from the Starstone, freeing everyone else from its control. While Strange battles Dagoth again and eventually banishes the creature to another dimension, star-beams from Yoggoth strike the Starstone and release evil matter with a dark sentience that has been ordered to hunt and destroy its assigned prey.
As the five return to Witch House, Blondine explains that, when Strange had evoked her memories of her past life, he had also made her sleeping mind vulnerable to control by Dagoth. At the doorway, Strange suddenly senses that Witch House is now alive and has been turned into a gigantic trap but it's too late because the trap has already snapped shut!
Solicit Synopsis
Dr. Strange—hot on the trail of world-devouring Shuma-Gorath!
Notes
- Features concepts created by Robert E. Howard.
- The title of the story in the next issue is revealed to be "The Doom that Bloomed on Kulthas!" However, by the time that issue was published, the title had been changed to "The Doom that Bloomed on Kathulos!"
